“A story with a male librarian as its hero? I need to check that out. Would you believe I’ve never read anything by Roth? I guess I’m a nineteenth-century man, through and through. Besides, older books are cheaper than new ones, if you know what to look for-and where. This set of Jane Austen, for example”-he pulled a small green book from the shelf-“it cost thirty dollars, or six dollars a book, and I found it at this rinky-dink flea market, where most of the stalls sell baby clothes and imitation designer purses. Anew hardcover will set you back that much.”

“So you’re a collector?”

“Not a serious one, because I couldn’t bear to own something I couldn’t use. I never understood that particular compulsion.” He flipped through the Austen, inhaling the pages’ smell with as much pleasure as he had sniffed the pizzas. “The irony is, if I didn’t work in a library and I had to buy new fiction the moment it appeared-and I confess, I am prey to the occasional fit of instant gratification-I’d probably have a world-class collection of modern firsts right now. Instead, I just have these old beat-up books that look valuable. Impresses girls, though.”

“Really?”

He tried for a roguish smile but ended up looking merely bashful. “Well, some girls. The male librarian doesn’t cut a lot of ice in a world where everyone else has stock options and new cars and condos with water views, but there’s a certain bookish subcult that is amenable to our charms.”

Tess, who had a matchmaking gene from her Weinstein side, made a mental note to throw Whitney into Daniel’s path. Lord knows, she had enough money of her own to overlook someone else’s lack thereof, and she did like books. Liked them more than boys, truth be told. She also shared Daniel Clary’s outdoorsy bent-he had a ten-speed hanging in the corner, and a pair of cross-country skis in his umbrella stand, along with a thick walking stick that looked as if it had been made for bagging peaks.

“I bet,” she said, her tone light and teasing. She decided to say out loud what she had thought the first time she saw him. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you had groupies who come to the library on made-up missions, just to talk to you.”

He blushed, but he didn’t deny it. “So let’s see this poem.”

She had photocopied the poem, although the original was probably so corrupted by her own fingerprints that this precaution made little difference. Still, she was trying to do the right thing, or so she kept telling her nagging conscience.

Daniel sat at the old wooden table that obviously did double duty for deskwork and dining, scanning the page. He read quickly, even more quickly than Tess, who fancied herself quite fast.

“Hmmm,” he said. “And this was the second one?”

“Yes. The first one brought me to the library and the sign on Mulberry Street. But it was relatively straightforward. This one has me baffled.”

“I know Poe’s tales better than I do the poems, and the horror stories better than the detective tales. Still, this seems familiar.” He got up and pulled a volume from the shelf, a black-bound book, small and frail-looking. “Yes, here it is. ”Alone.“”

Tess looked over his shoulder. “It’s all marked up; you’ve studied it.”

“The whole book is marked. It was like this when I bought it.” He flipped through the pages. It was, in fact, full of underlines and hash marks, with an occasional exclamation point in the margin. “I would never write in a book, not even a new one. But, as I said, there’s a reason these books are affordable.”

“So what does ”Alone‘ tell us?“

“What do any of Poe’s poems tell us? He was technically brilliant, an exacting craftsman. Wait, I love this.” He put down the first book and went to the shelf for another. “Poe wrote this, in a preface to his poems:

These trifles are collected and republished chiefly with a view to their redemption from the many improvements to which they have been subjected while going random at “the rounds of the press.”

“Clearly, Poe knew the press well,” Tess said. He continued to read.

If what I have written is to circulate at all, I am naturally anxious that it should circulate as I wrote it. In defence of my own taste, nevertheless, it is incumbent upon me to say, that I think nothing in this volume of much value to the public, or very creditable to myself. Events not to be controlled have prevented me from making, at any time, any serious effort in what, under happier circumstances, would have been the field of my choice.

Daniel looked up. “I love that. It’s so… naked. He’s trying to be self-deprecating, but his ego really comes through, as well as his resentment of the material circumstances that prevent him from writing full-time.”

“Yes,” Tess agreed, then tried to prod him back to the topic at hand, ever so gently. “But the poem? My poem? What does it mean?”

“I haven’t a clue. My guess is he wants you to know he’s not a dilettante or a poseur, who knows only ”The Raven‘ and “Annabel Lee,” or even “The Bells,” with their tintinnabulation. But I can’t see any other real significance. He left a few lines out, assuming it’s a he-“ His index finger pointed to four missing lines on the page.

From the same source I have not taken, My sorrow I could not awaken, My heart to joy at the same tone, And all I loved, I loved alone.

“I can’t see any significance to those,” Tess said.

“Neither can I, other than the fact that he was worried about fitting it on one piece of paper. I’m sorry. I’m not much help, am I?”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s probably just some sick twist, playing a game with me. For all I know, it’s the homicide detective working the case.” Or Arnold Pitts. Or Gretchen O’Brien. Or Jim Yeager, trying to ignite his own story. After all, he had been outside her home the day the first note appeared. “My boyfriend says he’s trying to tell us he’s not like other boys.”

“But that’s it!” Daniel Clary closed the book with a triumphant thump.

“It is? What is it?”

“He-she, whoever-is trying to get you to look into Bobby’s life. The red cliff of the mountain. I don’t know western Pennsylvania, and the mountains there probably aren’t red, except at sunset, but I think someone wants to get you to go see Bobby Hilliard’s parents, talk to them, see if Bobby told them anything in the last months of his life. The poem is about Bobby, not Poe. ”From childhood’s hour I have not been/As others were.“ If ever a poem were written about Bobby Hilliard, this is it.”

“You think?” Tess asked, not quite convinced. “What could possibly be there?”

“A demon-shaped cloud, I guess. I don’t know. I know you came here for my insights into Poe, but I knew Bobby too. This rings true to me. Whoever this is wants you to go talk to the Hilliards.”

“Well, that rules out Rainer.”

“As in Rilke?”

“As in homicide cop.” Tess checked her watch. “I’m supposed to meet my boyfriend in a bar and watch our friend Cecilia on one of those cable shows, Face Time. They’re doing a segment on the murder. You wanna come?”

Daniel Clary shook his head. “Television stresses me out, even good television. I’m a reader, I want to make up my own pictures. You know what? I couldn’t even watch Ken Burns’s documentary on the Civil War. That’s when I knew it was over for television and me.”

“Do you go to the movies?”

“Hardly ever. Although”-he grinned-“I did hear the rumor that Michael Jackson wants to play Poe in a movie about his life. That I’ll go see.”

“Well, let’s do something sometime.” Tess was still calculating how she could bring Daniel and Whitney together-but passively, unobtrusively, just a test. “Us beer-drinking bibliophiles have to stick together.”

“Okay,” he said. “But don’t think I’ll tell you my secrets.”

“What secrets?”

“Where I go to buy old books. You’re going to have to find those places on your own.”